Mayor de Blasio on Tuesday brushed off a spike in murders and shootings across the city, saying it’s hardly the return of New York’s bad old days.

“The fact is in some boroughs we have seen some increases,” de Blasio said. “In others, we’ve seen decreases.

“For those of us who were here in the bad old days when we had 2,000 murders or more a year, a lot of everyday citizens were getting caught by those crossfires.”

Murders are up 15 percent this year, from 107 to 123, as of Sunday night — but the mayor downplayed the statistics, blaming the city’s “sore spots” on a small group of career criminals.

Two more people were murdered between Monday and Tuesday, bringing this year’s total to 125.

“There’s been obviously tremendous police presence in some of the precincts where we’ve had the particular challenges,” de Blasio said. “I think it’s clear that what we have primarily here is a gang and crew problem.”

He said the murder increase is “small” — while in the same breath, promising, “We’ve got to do better. We’re going to turn that around.”

He urged people to pay more attention to overall crime, which is down compared with last year.

“If you put this year in the context of the years over the last 10 to 20 years, we still have one of the lowest overall — again, overall — index crime, the lowest crime we’ve seen in years,” he said.

Shootings are up 7.5 percent and shooting victims have increased by 9.1 percent for the year, with the summer months about to begin.

Despite the sobering stats, Hizzoner insisted, “When you look at murders and shootings — two areas where we want to do better, and we believe we will do better in the short term — compared to recent years, [we’re] still, thank God, very strong.”

He praised the NYPD for doing a “fantastic job,” and promised more police resources to address problem areas.

“We have to do better in certain precincts and we have to do better at addressing the gang problem,” he said.

“It’s abundantly clear, what’s happening more and more is isolated to a relatively small set of gangs and crews.”

The mayor has denied requests by Police Commissioner Bill Bratton to add more cops to the force — and failed to provide more funding for them in his latest budget proposal.

Across the city, the murder rate was up 60 percent last week compared with the same seven-day period last year — and up 53 percent over a 28-day period.

“I don’t think the week-to-week is the way to look at it,” de Blasio said. “I think the way to look at it is where we’re at this year compared to last year and previous years.”

But in Manhattan alone, murders have soared about 45 percent compared with last year, with 16 people killed in the borough, up from 11 as of Sunday night.

Shooting incidents have increased by about 38 percent in Manhattan, while the number of shooting victims has nearly doubled in the borough.

De Blasio said new technology, such as handheld mobile devices and the ShotSpotter system, which detects gunfire, should help stymie crime.

“It will speed up investigations,” he said. “It will speed up the ability of our officers to catch the bad guys. The ShotSpotter system that’s coming online more and
more is going to make a big difference.

“There’s a lot they’re putting into play that I think will be felt very soon,” he added.

The mayor claimed that the safety of New Yorkers is one of his biggest concerns.

“I’m worried all the time about keeping people safe in the city,” he said. “It’s part of the job. But I also have confidence the NYPD is constantly innovating.”

And the city has seen “ups and downs” in the crime rate before, he noted.

“There were points last year where we were very concerned things were trending in the wrong direction,” he said. “What happened at the end of last year? We had set an
all-time [low] record in terms of overall crime.”